“Uncle Tom,” says Susie, her voice kinda cracked, “I’m goin’ to leave yuh. I’m goin’ to my place beyond the skies.”
Mrs. Noon begins to blubber.
“Don’t cry,” says Susie. “It’s better this way. Tell Howard that I forgive him for everythin’. Ah. I hear the angels callin’. Can’t you hear ’em, Uncle Tom?”
“She’s dyin’,” wails Mrs. Noon.
“Git yore feet braced, Burlap,” says Oscar Tubbs, up there, on that two-by-six.
“Angel voices,” says Susie. “They’re callin’ me home.”
“Pull, you damn’ fools!” yelps Oscar.
And Little Eva starts on her long trip, as yuh might say. Up and up she goes, head and feet down, them spangled wings straight up. I’ve allus had my own idea of an angel, and Susie didn’t fit that idea.
Then the angel stopped and kinda hung there, swingin’ around.
“Keep her goin’!” hisses old Zibe from the side of the stage.
“The angels are takin’ her away,” wails Mrs. Noon.
Cra-a-a-ack!
That two-by-six snapped by too much weight, and down comes the handmade heaven. Susie lit on her head, and here comes Oscar Tubbs, Burlap Benson and Fetlock Feeney, follered by that busted two-by-six. Oscar lit on his feet, busted plumb through where Susie had already cracked the boards, and stopped with only his head in sight.
It shook the whole stage and also the whole danged house. One of Burlap’s boots hit me in the head, but as my lights went dim, I heard somebody yellin’, “Three angels gone to hell a’ready, and the fourth one dropped for reasons knowed to all of us!”
I woke up with Zibe and Zeke Hardy moppin’ me head with cold water, and I can hear Dog-Rib arguin’ at the top of his voice, “I don’t care a dang if Hank is still knocked out—we’ll have that there hoss race, or our money back. You’ve done advertised a race, and we crave a race.”
“But there ain’t no jockey to ride that race,” pleads Judgment. “You can see for yourself that Hank Potts ain’t fit to ride nothin’.”
“Suit yourself. I’ve done sent a couple men down to the hotel to set on that safe, where yuh keep the money. Oasis and Alkali towns crave that horse race; so it’s shore up to you.”
They go stompin’ out, while the crowd out in front makes all kinds of noise. I sabes them people, and if we don’t give ’em what they want, they’ll take the hall apart.
“Are you loyal to San Pablo, Hozie?” asks Zeke.
“Look at me and answer yore own question.”
“You’re a good rider. Hozie: ride for the honor of San Pablo. Never let Oasis say that we didn’t make good. Yo’re the man of the hour—the best rider in the San Pablo range. Think of poor old Judgment Jones and the starvin’ cannibals he aims to help with that money. Will yuh, Hozie?”
I said I wouldn’t—and swooned. When I woke up. I’ve got on Hank’s jockey clothes, and they’re helpin’ me on Tequila, that big, cold-jawed, leg-crossin’ sorrel. The horse is blindfolded, and it takes three men to hold his head down. The boards are crackin’ under his feet, and the blamed brute is scared stiff.
To the right of me is a thing like a big window, and in that window is Susie, Zeke, Zibe, Mrs. Noon, Oscar Tubbs, Burlap Benson and Fetlock Feeney, and they’re all yelpin’ their heads off, as though they’re lookin’ at a race, yellin’, “C’mon, Thunderbolt! Come on, Thunderbolt!”
“Let go!” yelps somebody, and they turned Tequila loose.
“Spur him straight ahead, Hozie!” snorts somebody else.
Spur nothin’. The next thing I knowed I was back on his rump, and he was climbin’ through that window affair, and the next thing I knowed I was out on his head, with both legs wrapped around his neck, and we’re on the edge of the stage, facin’ the stampede. The air is full of sombreros, all sailin’ at us, men are yelpin’, “Whoa! Whoa!”
I got one flash of the committee goin’ out the door on the heels of that stampedin’ mob, when somebody threw a chair, which landed on my head like a crown. It shore made me see a lot of stars, but I kept my presence of mind, as Tequila whirled around and went buck-jumpin’ straight to the back of the stage, knockin’ down everythin’ in sight, with me still out over his ears—and then we hit that treadmill.
Did we go? Man, that Tequila horse never ran so fast in his life. Why, he never had time to cross his legs. We wasn’t goin’ no place, but we was sure goin’ fast. Out from a pile of busted lumber I sees Peewee raise up, his eyes wide at what he sees.
“Can’tcha stop this?” I yells at him. He picks up a busted two-by-four, staggers over and shoves it down in the treadmill. They told me afterward that it throwed Peewee plumb against the back of the buildin’, but it shore stopped the machine.
I’m only about ten feet from the rear of the stage, which is covered with a black cloth, and this rear of the stage is the front of the room.
Wham-blam!We went off that treadmill like a skyrocket. I hears the crash of glass, the rippin’ of a cloth, and there I am out over the main street of San Pablo, two stories high, with nothin’ but air above, below and on all sides.
I spread my arms like the wings of a turkey buzzard, turned over once and landed settin’ down on a buckboard seat, which smashed like a egg under the impact. It also knocked me a little colder than I was, but I knowed the team busted loose and was runnin’ away. But I didn’t care. What was one little runaway beside what I’d been through? The rush of night air was coolin’ to my fevered brow.
And all of a sudden we went high-wide and handsome.Rippety-bing-bang-boom!There’s a bell ringin’, somethin’ roarin’, and then I landed on the seat of my pants on the depot platform and almost skidded into the train, which was ready to move. The team and buckboard was just leavin’ the other end of the platform.
I’m knocked kinda silly, but I heard a woman scream, as she ran past me and onto that train. The depot agent’s boots are stickin’ up from behind a trunk, where the runaway knocked him. I sets there and watches the train go out of sight. Beside me is a lady’s handbag, jist a little one with a white handkerchief stickin’ out of it. I put the thing in my pocket and got to my feet. I say “my feet” merely because they was hooked onto me. I didn’t have no feelin’ in ’em.
Then I wandered back down the street, stoppin’ now and then to get my toes pointed right, and finally got to the No-Limit Saloon. For a while I ain’t recognized, even if I have got most of the enamel knocked off my face. There’s Judgment Jones, talkin’ with Dog-Rib, and they come over to look me over.
“It’s all right, Hozie,” says Judgment. “Oasis and Alkali are satisfied we done our best. Dog-Rib says they expected more action, but I been tellin’ him it was jist a little rural play. Next time we’ll do better—I hope. But, take it all in all, we got our money’s worth—but no money.
“No money,” says he sadly. “Miss Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T., took it all and pulled out durin’ the play—we think. Anyway, she ain’t here, and the money was given to her in the hotel. The hotel keeper said she was in a big hurry, and she put the money in her handbag. Now, we’re goin’ to raffle the racehorse—if he’s still alive.”
I found Peewee settin’ on the sidewalk, and we went home. He’s so bent out of shape that his saddle don’t fit him, but we got back to the HP ranch and found the horse liniment. After the first or second deluge, I said to him, “Peewee, that Wimple woman got away with the money.”
“Did she? Good for her.”
“You don’t believe in stealin’, do yuh, Peewee?”
“Not stealin’—takin’.”
“If somebody happened to find her handbag and kept the money, would that be stealin’?”
“Finder’s keepers.”
I tosses the handbag on the table, and Peewee goggles at it. He don’t ask no questions. That’s what I like about Peewee. After while he blinks one of his purple eyes, the other one bein’ shut tight, and says, “Thinkin’ it over, Hozie. I’m wonderin’.”
He opens the bag and there’s a envelope, folded in the middle; and we can feel the money inside—paper money. On it is written:Funds of The Curse of Drink. It’s Judgment Jones’s writin’. Peewee shakes his head.
“We can’t do it, Hozie. Old Judgment is the most honest man on earth. He needs that money for the heathen. I could never look him in the face again. He wouldn’t do wrong to anybody, and he needs that money. He trusted that woman, jist like he trusts everybody. Why, he’d even trust me and you.”
“That’s right,” says I. “We’ll give it back.”
But I wanted to see how much money they took in for that show; so I steamed the envelope open and dumped it out. I looked at Peewee and he looked at me. Money? Nothin’ but a lot of old newspaper, cut to the size of bills. We sets there and does a lot of thinkin’, and after while Peewee dumps the whole works into the stove.
And as far as we know, the heathen are in jist the same shape they were before we put on this show. Peewee wanted to be a contortionist, and for once in his life he got tied in a knot. Peewee’s satisfied. Hank’s satisfied, but Susie ain’t; she wanted to go all the way to heaven. I’m satisfied—that a cowpuncher ought to keep off every kind of a stage, except one with four wheels.
Susie says it’s too bad we were obliged to miss the moral of her play, but I said I didn’t.
“What was the moral?” she asks.
“Don’t kill yore jockey before the race starts,” says I.
And I’m right, too.
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 10, 1929 issue ofShort Storiesmagazine.
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 10, 1929 issue ofShort Storiesmagazine.